Bigger on the Inside
by dzio
Summary: Series of Doctor Who drabbles, 100 words each. Be careful, there are spoilers.
1. Kings of the Wasteland

**A/N: **For a standard disclaimer see my profile. The lyrics on top are from "Gold Dust" by Tori Amos.

All right. As some of you might know, I don't like drabbles, so when I sat down and wrote one, I actually surprised myself very much. Paradoxically the shorter the story, the harder it is to get it right and as a result a great majority of drabbles out there are complete and utter crap. I hope I managed to avoid this, but if not – do tell me.

And now the Author's Notes are longer than the drabble itself, so I'll shut up now and let you read in peace. Here goes.

**oooooooooo**

_"How did it go so fast?_

_You'll say as we are looking back,_

_and then we'll understand - _

_we held gold dust _

_in our _

_hands."_

**oooooooooo**

**Kings of the wasteland**

The Master speaks about Gallifrey and the Doctor almost smiles. He would smile if he didn't hurt so much, if he had strength to do anything except breathe, barely managing to hold his face above the choking dust.

Kings of the wasteland, both of them. But they used to be princes of the red hills, daring the universe to throw all of its horrifying glory at them, because at that moment they were as magnificent as the stars above.

Bitter tang of old dirt coats his tongue and he remembers. They were immortal once, before the universe called their bluff.

**oooooooooo**

tbc.


	2. Loss

**A/N: **For a standard disclaimer see my profile. The lyrics on top are from "39" by The Cure.

**oooooooooo**

"_And all the things I promised, and all the things I tried,_

_Yeah, all the things I ever dreamed, I used to feed the fire..."_

**oooooooooo**

**Loss**

To lose something you must have it first. His losses line up, form a chain long enough to strangle all happiness out of the world. Somehow he manages to find new one, in the smallest of things, because they are all he can afford now. The greater ones were first to go. He finds his tiny joys, and has something new to lose when time comes. Again.

The most cruel thing in the universe is how it can always find something else to take away from him, even when nothing, no one, and no place feels like his any more.

**oooooooooo**

tbc.


	3. Making Do

**A/N: **For a standard disclaimer see my profile. The lyrics on top are from "Yesterday Is Here" by Tom Waits.

**oooooooooo**

"_What I want you to remember_

_as I disappear tonight - _

_today is grey skies,_

_tomorrow's tears._

_You'll have to wait till yesterday is here."_

**oooooooooo**

**Making do**

He stares at Donna, brilliant as ever, and wants nothing more than to hug her and never let go. He needs it so much that it physically hurts.

"I'm going to die," he says, because he can't bear it alone any longer and there is no one else to tell, except this kind almost-stranger. More words tumble out of his mouth in an uncharacteristically awkward, hesitant rush and saying them out loud is almost enough to break him.

Wilf's understanding and his gentle compassion are a small comfort, but they're almost enough to make him whole again. For now.

**oooooooooo**

tbc.


	4. Safe

**A/N: **For a standard disclaimer see my profile. The lyrics on top are from "Love Will Come Through" by Travis.

**oooooooooo**

_"If I told you a secret you won't tell a soul,_

_Will you hold it and keep it alive?"_

**oooooooooo**

**Safe**

Donna Noble was always special, even if she never really believed it.

"For one moment, one shining moment, she was the most important woman in the whole wide universe," says the Doctor. What he doesn't say is that she still is and always will be, until the day she breathes her last. He is the only being in all of creation who will ever see her for what she became, the only one who will understand how infinitely precious she is.

Locked inside Donna's brilliant, stubborn, stupid human mind, sleeps all the glory and all the nightmares of Gallifrey, safe.

**oooooooooo**

tbc.


	5. A Fixed Point

**A/N:** For a standard disclaimer see my profile. The lyrics on top are from "Daydreamer" by Adele.

**oooooooooo**

"_There's no way I could describe him,_

_What I said is just what I'm hoping for."_

**oooooooooo**

**A Fixed Point**

He's _wrong_. There's no judgement in this, he's wrong like cold flames, dry water, bitter sugar, like weightless stones. To any time-sensitive being Jack is a distorting mirror, bending reality into impossible, nauseating shapes. A rock in the middle of a river you're swimming in. Currents split around him, twist and swirl, drag you towards him and you can almost see yourself crushed against the wet stone, pulled under, bleeding and broken.

But the Doctor thinks that maybe he won't crash after all. Maybe a swimmer can hold on, rest his tired arms, let the rock keep him from drowning.

**oooooooooo**

tbc.


	6. Scientist

**A/N: **For a standard disclaimer see my profile. The lyrics from "Better Things" by Massive Attack.

**oooooooooo**

"_You say the magic's gone._

_Well, I'm not a magician."_

**oooooooooo**

**Scientist**

"You're always doing this, reducing it to science," says Jackie Tyler. "How can understanding make anything less?" the Doctor wants to ask.

He thinks about the concentric circles and expanding arches, reaching out into the unknown. Scattered dots, asking to be connected, empty space dividing them, waiting to be filled. The order in which the lines are drawn, spelling out an evolution of an idea, a road from a blank page to full comprehension. A Gallifreyan word for "mystery".

The magic's never gone, not as long as there are questions left to be asked – and answered.

**oooooooooo**

tbc.


	7. Jenny

**A/N: **For a standard disclaimer see my profile. Lyrics from "Mothers of the Disappeared" by U2.

**oooooooooo**

"_Midnight, our sons and daughters_

_were cut down and taken from us._

_Hear their heartbeat,_

_We hear their heartbeat."_

**oooooooooo**

**Jenny**

He lays on his bed, fully clothed. Lights flicker gently, changing from underwater green to Gallifreyan burnt orange, and the hum of the TARDIS pulses around him.

She was like him. Not fully, not yet, but with time she would be. He could already sense her, at the very edge of his consciousness – a bare hint of a whisper, just a fraction more than a dream.

After interminable years of suffocating, raging silence, it felt like the first note of a symphony. Like hope.

He stares at the ceiling and thinks about all the songs she will never sing.

**oooooooooo**

tbc.


	8. Scars

**A/N: **For a standard disclaimer see my profile. Lyrics from "Little Wing" by the one and only Jimmy Hendrix.

**oooooooooo**

_"It's alright, she says,_

_it's alright._

_Take anything you want from me,_

_anything._

_Fly on, little wing."_

**oooooooooo**

**Scars**

She's ready for him now.

They are both new, because that's what he needs. She tore herself inside out and now he has to begin by learning the new her, discovering, by being surprised, awed, baffled. It's better than picking up the scattered and charred pieces of the past.

She let the ghosts go, so he doesn't have to.

"What have you got for me this time?" he whispers, bouncing on his toes with barely contained excitement, joy in every line of his brand new, young face. She invites him in. Opens the freshly painted doors, free of scars.

**oooooooooo**

tbc.


	9. The First

**A/N: **For a standard disclaimer see my profile. Lyrics from "Another Time, Another Place" by U2.

**oooooooooo**

_"I awoke with a tear on my tongue,_

_I awoke with a feeling of never before."_

**oooooooooo**

**The first**

He's never woken before and it's a strangest feeling, as always. Part of his mind makes a snapshot and adds it to the growing collection of other firsts, next to "getting knocked out for the first time."

Another part of him searches for that big red "you are here" sign, runs through his recent memories. There are surprisingly few of them and for a moment he struggles for more. There should be more, he knows. There's something huge he's forgotten, some immense weight about to crush him.

And then he remembers and realizes that it's no longer his.

**oooooooooo**

tbc.


	10. Burnt Orange

**A/N: **For a standard disclaimer see my profile. Lyrics from "Troy" by Sinead O'Connor.

**oooooooooo**

_"Being what I am, _

_there is no other Troy _

_for me tu burn."_

**oooooooooo**

**Burnt orange**

There's a list in the Tardis database, of places never to be visited again. Some were forever wiped out of existence by the crushing wave of the War. Some he left with screams ringing in his ears and taste of ash on his tongue.

The first one was Gallifrey – a stupid, juvenile gesture of rebellion. He wishes he could take it back.

One day, not so long ago, he added twenty three names to the list. With his brand new, shaking hands he typed the coordinates of every single planet where red grass grows under a burnt orange sky.

**oooooooooo**

tbc.


	11. First Edition

**A/N: **For a standard disclaimer see my profile. Lyrics from "Night Vision" by Suzanne Vega. And yes, I know it's been done before, couldn't stop myself.

**oooooooooo**

"_When the darkness takes you,_

_With her hand across your face,_

_Don't give in too quickly._

_Find the thing she's erased._

_Find the line, find the shape_

_Through the grain._

_Find the outline, things will_

_Tell you their name."_

**oooooooooo**

**First edition**

The Doctor answers a call from an unknown number with some trepidation. The extremely irritated stranger on the other end of the line wants to know how on Earth is it possible that a woman from Chiswick put a great deal of highly classified information into a science-fiction novel, which is about to hit the stores.

The Doctor hangs up without a word and then laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

He treasures the signed copy Wilf got him. Even if it does make it necessary for him to repeatedly convince 21st century humans that he is _not _a fictional character.

**oooooooooo**

tbc.


	12. In Flux

**A/N: **Lyrics from "Anthem" by Leonard Cohen. This has been bugging me ever since we learned what the name of that crashed spaceship behind the Eleventh Doctor was. I refuse to believe it was a glaring continuity error by Steven Moffat, so here is my explanation. Sort of.

**oooooooooo**

"_There is a crack in everything, _

_That's how the light gets in.."_

**oooooooooo**

**In Flux**

Few months ago at an Asgard marketplace the Doctor helped a lost girl find her mother. He told her a story about telepathic butterflies and shared a packet of biscuits with her. One might call that a picnic.

Now he's staring at the smoking wreck of Byzantium with Doctor Song, who has all his faces in that maddening notebook of hers, and wonders. Why did Professor Song expect the previous, younger him to have already lived this?

He thinks about Amy and the Daleks, and a giant robot trampling London, and a cold feeling of unease settles in his hearts.

**oooooooooo**

tbc.


End file.
